NIOC Inks MoU with Toyo, Petropars

The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a consortium comprising Japan’s engineering major Toyo and Petropars Company for rehabilitation of facilities and upgrading of gas production of Salman Oilfield.

Signed on Monday, the document was inked by Gholamreza Manouchehri, deputy for development and engineering at NIOC, Hamid Akbari, managing director of Petropars, and Hiroshi Sato, Senior Executive Officer and Director of Energy Business Unit at Toyo, in Tehran.

Addressing the ceremony, Manouchehri highlighted Toyo’s history in working in Iran, adding the corporation has exhibited an acceptable performance in operating South Pars 6, 7, and 8 projects in the past.

He voiced Iran’s keenness to cooperate with Asian companies in its oil and gas projects, adding the MoU paves the way for the Japanese company to bolster its presence in Iran’s oil industry and upstream projects.

The senior NIOC official said the output of Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) has fallen in recent years and many of the company’s facilities need rehabilitation and renovation.

He further said that NIOC, Toyo and Petropars will finance studies over the project but if the MoU leads to a deal, it will be carried out under an EPCF contract and financing of the project will be on the Japanese party.